Ask a Mexican on Fashion Flubs and Oversize Belt Buckles

The current clothing trend is for ladies to wear low-cut jeans and belly shirts that expose their midriffs. That looks great on a hard-bodied woman, so why do so many fat Mexicamujeresinsist on dressing like this? It's one of the grossest things imaginable. Their gut hangs over their pants and pushes their shirt up. Many times they have stretch marks, which make it even worse. I can't believe they look in the mirror and think they look attractive. What gives?Fat Is Malo

American men might prefer boinking skinny things, but the wisdom of the ancients still informs the male Mexican mind, and the ancients loved fatties. Many pre-Columbian codices and statues depict women as gorditas — plump chicas. Obesity meant wealth, fertility, and what Groucho Marx called "an armful of fun on a cold night." But it wasn't just the Aztec or Mayans who loved their ladies large. Carl Jung and other psycho-mythologists point to the Earth Mother, found in almost all societies, as one of the most powerful archetypes of the collective unconscious. Most artistic renditions of the Earth Mother depict her as retre-voluptuous — think of the Venus of Willendorf, the famous prehistoric statue of a fertility goddess with massive breasts, vulva, and stomach . . . come to think of it, this Venus bears an uncanny resemblance to those Mexican women you so hate, Fat Is Malo. A bad diet also explains the endemic obesity among Mexican women, but all that a massive mujer does when she squeezes into those low-cut jeans and belly shirts is transform into the Earth Mother and invite males to partake of her eternal fecundity. And, judging by the litters of kids Mexican women produce, more men take up the invitation than not.

Think utility, vanity, and Freud. A massive belt buckle ensures that our sturdy belts won't burst under the double strains of the tools we hang from it — whether they be wrenches, cell phones, or revolvers — and the bellies that rise from our middles like Kilimanjaro in the Tanzanian plains. It's a Mexican man's most cherished accessory after the tejana and alligator boots, so of course he'll glam up his buckles with engravings — names, arabesque designs and pastoral scenes are the most popular. But owning a bonito buckle isn't enough for Mexican men. As Freud points out, any time men flash abnormally large possessions — whether it's goateed gabachos flying the American flag from their Ford F250s or the Bush administration with its missiles — it's a stand-in for our cocks. In an hombre's case, however, the buckle is a stand-in for our less-than-stellar members (most sexology surveys rank Latinos third behind blacks and gabachos on the large pipi scale). So, ladies: the larger the buckle, the teenier the weenie.